NHL: League has history of salary squabbles

Sunday

Sep 30, 2012 at 12:01 AMSep 30, 2012 at 9:56 AM

Forbes Kennedy, fresh out of junior hockey and ready to begin his NHL career, was seated in the Chicago Blackhawks' dressing room before an exhibition game when a despised rival - Detroit Red Wings star Ted Lindsay - walked briskly into enemy territory. It was September 1956, and the NHL Players' Association was starting to get its legs.

Aaron Portzline, The Columbus Dispatch

Forbes Kennedy, fresh out of junior hockey and ready to begin his NHL career, was seated in the Chicago Blackhawks' dressing room before an exhibition game when a despised rival - Detroit Red Wings star Ted Lindsay - walked briskly into enemy territory.

It was September 1956, and the NHL Players' Association was starting to get its legs.

"Lindsay stood before us and said, 'I'm not in love with you guys, and you're not in love with me, but there are times when we have to stick together, and one of 'em is now,' " Kennedy recalled. "We listened to what he said. Then we all put $100 in the hat to get lawyers to start this thing up, and away we went."

Kennedy's memories seem as sharp as his wit, but the details - a dressing-room meeting, a hat and $100 - seem so quaint compared with the current squabbles taking place amid the boardrooms and high-rises in Toronto and New York.

Unable to divide $3.3 billion in revenues, the NHL and the players' union are almost two weeks into a lockout that threatens the start of the 2012-13 season. Players and managers from previous NHL generations say the league's fourth work stoppage in 20 years is both depressing and all-too-familiar. The 2004-05 lockout erased the entire season.

"Business is the ugly side of hockey," said Hall of Fame defenseman Brad Park, who played for the New York Rangers, Boston and Detroit during a 17-year career. "Neither side trusts the other side. That's the biggest issue, and it always has been. And I think there's even less trust these days, because they're talking about so much more money."

Unfathomable riches

The average NHL player today makes $2.45 million, up $1 million from the previous lockout. The NHL minimum salary last season was $525,000.

"She's gone crazy," Kennedy said. "My first contract (with Chicago in 1956) was for $7,500 a year and $1,000 for signing. The players in camp were mad at me for taking that, so they made me go back to ownership and demand more money. So I did.

"My knees were shaking. I asked for an $8,500 salary and $2,000 for signing, and I was scared to death I was asking for too much and they'd get (mad) and send me to Buffalo. But they didn't. I got it. I thought I was rich, too, boy."

Park, the No. 2 overall pick by the Rangers in the 1966 amateur draft, made $10,000 during his rookie season, 1968-69.

After playing in nine straight All-Star Games and finishing as runner-up in the Norris Trophy (to Bobby Orr and Denis Potvin) six times, Park's salary topped out at $350,000 during the 1984-85 season.

"My take-home after taxes was about $150,000 that season," Park said. "I thought I was a rich man back then, but players like me today - scoring defensemen - are making about $8 million or $9 million per season. Guess I was born early."

Pat Quinn played nine seasons as an NHL defenseman with Toronto, Vancouver and the Atlanta Flames. He then spent the next two decades in management and coaching roles with Philadelphia, Los Angeles, Vancouver, Toronto and Edmonton.

He has sat on both sides of the negotiating table during an NHL career that spans almost 50 years. It began in 1966, when he negotiated his first contract with Montreal general manager Sam Pollack on a train.

"We couldn't come to an agreement," Quinn said. "I'd made $7,000 in the old Central League. I wanted $8,000 in the NHL. He said no, so I left training camp.

"I'll never forget when I got home to my parents' house. My mom thought I was nuts to give up $8,000. 'What do you mean you left camp? Do you know how much your father makes?' He was a firefighter. But I told her I could have made more money going back to work at the steel company in Hamilton, Ontario."

In 1974, while playing in Atlanta, he was part of the union when the first collective-bargaining agreement between players and owners was reached. But after a decade of coaching, Quinn took a management position with the Canucks. Now he held the purse strings.

"It was an eye-opener, for sure," Quinn said. "I had my eyes opened. Players don't always know what all goes into putting the product on the ice. I know I did not fully get it.

"The budget for the whole Canucks' business in 1987 was $13.5 million. We were drawing 7,000 fans at the gate. Our entire payroll when I took over was $4 million, and we were losing $3.5 million to $4 million a season."

A piece of pie

Quinn's view from the owner's perspective did not convince him that players are overpaid, however. Not back then, certainly, but not today, either.

The NHL's demand for sharp salary rollbacks, and the players' refusal to take less money in a league whose revenues have soared, is not a new fight.

"When we played, the goal was to have a long-enough career that you could afford your house when you retired," Quinn said. "But 99 percent of us believed we were getting too small a piece of the pie back then, too. And we were. It was unfair.

"Even today, It's not as simple as some people want to make it. There's nobody else in the world that can do what these players do. We're not making widgets here. This is sports and entertainment, and those who entertain get more money."

Kennedy was more direct.

"How can this owner in Minnesota (Craig Leipold) sign two guys this summer (free agents Zach Parise and Ryan Suter) for $200 million and turn around and cry poor?" Kennedy said. "Makes no sense. I don't knock the kids today for what they make.

"What's changed is how the owners now have (NHL commissioner Gary) Bettman to do the fighting for them. But nobody should forget that the owners are making the snowballs and he's the one firing them."

The concern, shared by all, is that another lengthy work stoppage could damage this great game.

"I'll be angry if they start canceling games," Park said. "If you damage something that's special to all of us who were lucky enough to play, I'll probably get angry.

"I know the game came back strong after the last one (2004-05). But don't think you can keep doing that to people. You're hurting a sport; you're hurting its fans. There's only so much people are willing to take before they say enough's enough."

aportzline@dispatch.com

@Aportzline

Never miss a story

Choose the plan that's right for you.
Digital access or digital and print delivery.